


No friends closer than the ones we lost

by labellelunaclaire



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Internet Forum, Monster Hunters, Multimedia, Sole Survivor Jessica, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-16 12:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labellelunaclaire/pseuds/labellelunaclaire
Summary: Jess can’t forget the night she saw the creature. The night all of her friends died. She wants answers, and a mysterious stranger on the internet might have them for her.





	No friends closer than the ones we lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/gifts).



> Yuletide once again! I was so excited to participate this year and actually have the time to not be rushing with finals and school and such. This fic was a ton of fun to write, even though it kind of got way from me! Like, wow! I didn't think when I started writing that I would end up with nearly 7k words. So I hope you enjoy, Selkit! I tried to stay true to your prompt while also writing something that's of interest to me. :)

_“There’s something in the mines.”_

Everyone told her that she was just traumatized. It was cold. She was in shock. Her mind made things up to try to make sense of the senseless.

_“Just one year following the disappearance of teenages Hannah and Bethany Washington, a devistating fire at the Washington estate on Blackwood Mountain has destroyed the entire structure. Three bodies have been found in the house and one found just outside, with yet another body found outside of a different building on the property. Search parties are combing the property for possible survivors. So far, only one person has been found alive, and with temperatures well below freezing, it’s a race against the clock to find other possible survivors.”_

Jess keeps a hidden notebook with all of the newspaper clippings of that night that she could squirrel away, carefully concealed inside of a fake book on her rarely touched shelf.

Also hidden is a diary, which she has written everything she could possibly remember down so she won’t forget.

In an invisible folder on her computer, she has downloaded every video report that made the news, every radio clip and podcast.

She knows there’s something hidden inside them, and she doesn’t want her parents to stop her from figuring out what it is. They’ve already pulled her out of school and put her into an online homeschool program while scheduling bi weekly therapy sessions.

When she thinks back on that wretched night, all she can remember is being grabbed by something lightning fast and then falling down a mine shaft. And Mike… she remembers Mike. He reached out to her. He tried to help her. To _save_ her.

He couldn’t even save himself.

She remembers waking up, freezing cold and scared and in pain, somewhere down in the mines. She remembers hearing the strange sounds of the… that _thing_ down there with her. She remembers being so petrified with terror that she couldn’t even move after busting through the boarded out entrance to the mine.

She remembers seeing just a flash of that horrifying, grotesque monster, sure it was going to drag her away again, to her death this time.

She never told anyone about the creature she saw. Or thought she saw. She just said there was something down there. She knew that no one would believe her if she described the deathly pale skin and unnaturally long body, sickly in its proportions.

She remembers being told that they weren’t sure who had been found yet, but that some hadn’t been found.

Like Beth and Hannah hadn’t been found.

She was hit hardest by the reality that Mike and Emily were… gone. Obviously, she loved Mike. He was good to her. He treated her well. He tried to _save_ her that night. But Emily… god, they’d always had a tumultuous relationship, hadn’t they? Ever since grade school, when they first became friends. The number of times they stopped being friends and then started being friends again was… staggering to say the least. And in middle school when they started becoming more and more obsessed with clothes and boys and popularity. It was always a competition between them. But she had always felt like she couldn’t say no to Emily. Like, no matter how bad things got, she needed to make things up to Em. Em was way more important to her than any boy or designer handbag. The things she felt towards Emily were… well, she couldn’t even put them into thought. She was far more than a friend. Something more. Something she couldn’t even vocalize. They always make up. Always.

Until, that is, she started seeing Mike and broke Girl Code 101.

How ridiculous it all seemed, fighting over a boy. She mourned the loss of her friendship with Emily more than any breakup. It felt like a breakup.

Maybe her feelings towards Emily were… more than just that of a close friend.

Jess shakes her head of all that. It’s hard enough to get through everything without dwelling on… well, the loss of all of the people she was closest with in this world.

She wants answers.

For weeks, she’s been scouring the internet for anything that might resemble her recollection of events. Similar stories. Similar sightings of creeping monsters who grab girls away and murder their friends. 

For weeks, she’s been chasing down every virtual false lead and creative writing project some wacko online decides to post to scare people.

For weeks, she’s found nothing.

Until now.

After so many searches and pouring through page after page of results, she’s found it, a small forum of people on a website that looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 90’s.

>   
>  **_Strange experience_ **
> 
> _So I have a story for you guys. When I was about five, my family and I were on a vacation in a cabin up on a mountain in Alberta, CAN. Beautiful place, but very isolated. Prices to die for (literally, as you’ll soon learn). My parents thought they hit the vacation lotto. Anyways, we were there for a couple of days when weird shit started to happen. And I mean WEIRD. We started finding dead deer on the trails, completely eviscerated, with their heads ripped clear off. We tried reporting it to the game warden, but they insisted that it was probably just a bear. A bear? In the dead of winter? I don’t think so. But my parents took them at their word. That’s when things started to get scary. It was the fourth or fifth night, I think, and I was having a hard time sleeping, so I decided to just look out the window for a while. It was snowing and I loved watching the snow fall._
> 
> _That’s when I saw it._
> 
> _I know what you’re probably thinking. “Truthseeker211, you were just five years old! How can you even trust that you saw what you thought you saw?” But I know. I will never forget. There was… I can only describe it as a monster, guys. A horrible, terrible, disgusting monster. I hesitate to say it looked human, because it only looked so in the loosest of senses. It was almost as pale as the snow, with grotesquely long legs and arms. The way it moved… it was like something out of a horror movie, crawling around on all fours. And guys, it was so fucking fast. Impossible fast. I watched it jump from the trucks of the trees and it was like it was teleporting. I was frozen in fear. I couldn’t do anything but watch it. I swear, it looked right at me with these cold, glassed over eyes and I thought I was a goner. But then its head snapped in another direction and it bound away into the woods. The next morning, I told my parents what I saw and they just brushed me off, but we found another dead deer in the forest and they were spooked enough that we cut our vacation short and went back home._
> 
> _Fucking scariest thing that’s ever happened to me. If anyone has any idea what it could have been, please, share with the class.  
>  _ **_posted by TruthSeeker007 6 hours ago_ **
> 
> * * *
>
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _** _Whoa dude! You totally saw Slender Man! /s_
>> 
>>  _You probably just had a bad dream. Have you considered therapy?  
>  _ **_posted by ObligitorySkeptic 6 hours ago_ **
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
> _** _Hey mods, can you bring down the banhammer on ObligitorySkeptic?  
>  _ ****_posted by VerifiedMonsterFucker 6 hours ago_
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _** _@ObligitorySkeptic, consider this your last warning before I permaban your ass into the afterlife._
>> 
>>  _OP, I think that @JawsOfDeath posted about a similar experience once. Care to chime in, Jaws?  
>  _**_posted by QueenOfTheDamnedForum_ ** _✔️_ **_5 hours ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
> _** _Holy shit, this is like if you 100% just downloaded my memories and reported them back to me, except my family was vacationing in the Appalachian Mountains when I was eight. TruthSeeker, can you draw a picture of what you saw and post it?  
>  _ ****_posted by JawsOfDeath 3 hours ago_
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
> _** _I’m not really an artist, but I can give it a shot.  
>  _ _posted by TruthSeeker07 2 hours ago_
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
> _** _I’ll draw one up, too. Agree to post in 1 hour?  
>  _ ****_posted by JawsOfDeath 2 hours ago_
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
> _** _Agree.  
>  _ ****_posted by TruthSeeker007 2 hours ago_
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _** _Here’s my best interpretation. Sorry that it sucks._
>> 
>>  **_link  
>  _** **_posted by Truthseeker007 1 hour ago_ **
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _Okay, I’m posting mine before I look at your’s._
>> 
>> **_link_ **
>> 
>> _Edit: Holy fucking shit!  
>  _ **_posted by JawsOfDeath 1 hour ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck  
>  _ **_posted by TruthSeeker007 1 hour ago_ **

Jess holds her breath. There are two little blue links, one from each user. She resists the urge to click on them, to get some answers to her questions. She needs to gather her thoughts.

Frantically, she rifles through her drawers, searching for a sketchbook and pencil to finally put to paper the horrors she’s been living with for the past several months. She only got a quick glance at the monster from the mines, but its face has been burned behind her eyes every time she closes them. She is never without that image. The pencil drawing she does is as perfect a likeness as she has the skills to draw, and yet it still can’t do the creature justice. She snaps a picture of it with her phone and emails it to herself.

Without giving herself a chance to back out, she opens a new tab on her bowsers and goes to the forum’s main page, where there’s a little _Sign Up Here!_ button on the top right hand side. She quickly fills in all of her information and returns to the thread.

She clicks on the first link.

The drawing is crude, but it gives the basic idea of a monstrous creature with grotesque features. She clicks on the second link.

This drawing is much better than the first, and it’s what cements in her heart what she had hoped to find. She is not the first to have a run in with the beasts that murdered her friends. She continues to read through the thread in a daze.

> > ******_Re: Strange Experience_**  
>  _Fake.  
>  _ ******_posted by ObligitorySkeptic 53 minutes ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> ******_Re: Strange Experience_**  
>  _Oh my god, what the hell?  
>  _ ******_posted by MistressMacabre 49 minutes ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> ******_Re: Strange Experience_**  
>  _VerifiedMonsterFucker: Whoa, holy fuck. Does anyone have any idea what this thing could be?  
>  _ ******_posted by VerifiedMonsterFucker 38 minutes ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _Bye, Skeptic. That was your last chance, though I have no doubt we’ll be seeing you again soon with a different handle. See you later, zombie troll._
>> 
>>  _TruthSeeker, Jaws, this is absolutely incredible. Does anyone else have any experience with something like this?  
>  _ **_posted by QueenOfTheDamnedForum_ ** _✔️_ **_25 minutes ago_ **
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> ******_Re: Strange Experience_**  
>  _Let me check out my lexicon and see if there’s anything that even remotely matches this description.  
>  _ ******_posted by CryptidKeeper 19 minutes ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _Literally anything you’ve got would be appreciated. I’ve carried this around for the past 20 years.  
>  _ **_posted by TruthSeeker007 17 minutes ago_ **

Jess types her comment with her breath held. 

> > **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _**_I know this is going to sound crazy, but I had an experience with these exact creatures a few months ago on Blackwood Mountain. A big group of us used to go every winter to our friends’ cabin. Well, over a year ago, two of my friends ran out into the storm and were never found. We all decided to go back to celebrate their memory even though we had mostly grown apart. My boyfriend and I ended up going to a different building on the property and while we were there, some…_ thing _broke through the window I was standing in front of and grabbed me. It dragged me off. I could hear my boyfriend screaming for me. And then it dropped me on this old mine elevator, and I fell through right as my boyfriend found me. I passed out for a while, I guess. I’m not really sure exactly how long, but it was close to dawn when I finally came to. I was in so much pain, and I was lost, trying to find my way out of the mines, but they were like a maze._
>> 
>> _And that’s when I realized I wasn’t alone. There was something in the mines. And it was screaming._
>> 
>> _I hide as quickly as I could, and stayed as still as possible. I could hear it moving, throwing itself against the walls of the mine. When I thought it was gone, I started towards what I thought was an exit, but I heard it again. I glance back and saw exactly what @TruthSeeker007, but it was mostly in shadow. I could only make out it’s silhouette. I saw light coming from between the slats of a wooden wall and I busted through it, nearly falling off a cliff ledge. Somehow, I kept my balance and pressed myself against the outside wall of the mountain and tried not to move a muscle. I glanced over at the entrance to the mines and I saw it. I see that horrific face every time I close my eyes._
>> 
>> **_link_ **
>> 
>> _I swear, it looked right at me, but it’s like it couldn’t see me where I was standing. Either way, it went back into the mines, and I tried to find my way back to my friends. But by the time it was light enough to make sense of the forest, a plume of smoke was rising over the trees. The entire cabin was engulfed in flames. My friends were nowhere to be found._
>> 
>> _I’m still not sure what happened to them. They found three bodies inside the house, burned to a crisp. They had to use dental records to figure out who they were. One of them was my boyfriend. Another was my best friend. They found another body outside. They never released this information to anyone, but his head was ripped clear off, and something had torn through his stomach to his internal organs._

Jess takes a breath. She is feeling queasy just thinking of what had happened to Chris. She steeles her nerves and continues. 

> > _There was another decapitated body found elsewhere on the property. Some guy who had apparently been threatening the family who owned the place. I’m still not sure how he fits into all of this._
>> 
>> _The rest of my friends, I have no idea. Three are still missing. They weren’t in the cabin and they weren’t in the surrounding areas. But the mines… they’re so big. There are so many places where you could accidentally end up trapped in an area with no exit. Whatever happened to them, though, they’re dead. There’s no way they could have survived the weather, let alone whatever the monsters on that mountain are. I’m the only one who made it out. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if I had just let the thing kill me.  
>  _ **_posted by TheSoleSurvivor less than a minute ago_ **

She pushes back in her chair. Something about finally writing it all down, getting it all out to faceless, nameless people on the internet, has fatigued her. But also makes her feel… strangely light. Like she has been carrying the weight of this horrible night around with her and she has finally set it down. She reveles in that for a few long minutes.

And then she hears a light _ping!_ come from her computer.

> > **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _Jesus-fucking-Christ-on-the-cross!  
>  _ **_posted by JawsOfDeath less than a minute ago_ **

Another minute passes, and another ping.

> > **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _I fucking heard about that story on the radio!  
>  _ **_posted by MistressMacabre less than a minute ago_ **

Maybe she shouldn’t have put so many identifying features in her post. What if someone figures out it was her? Her name was never released to the public, but surely there are ways to figure out someone’s identity?

But if she gets the answers she is looking for, does it really matter?

Two more pings. 

> > ******_Re: Strange Experience_**  
>  _You said it completely ignored you, even though you were right there? Like it couldn’t see you? Maybe it’s attracted to movement, if you said you were standing completely still. That might narrow down my lexicon search.  
>  _ ******_posted by CryptidKeeper less than a minute ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _Nice creepypasta.  
>  _ **_posted by ImBackWitches less than a minute ago_ **

Jess quickly types a response to CryptidKeeper.

> > **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _Yes, that’s right. It just looked straight through me. Maybe you’re right. It could be attracted to movement.  
>  _ **_posted by TheSoleSurvivor less than a minute ago_ **

Another ping.

> > **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _I’m blocking your whole IP, Skeptic/Witches. Never darken our doorstep again._
>> 
>>  _@TheSoleSurvivor, I’m so sorry to hear about your friends. I hope that we can get some answers for you that can provide some closure.  
>  _ **_posted by QueenOfTheDamnedForum_ ** _✔️_ **_less than a minute ago_ **

Jess can hardly believe what is happening. All of these people who _believe_ her. And not just believe, but have witnessed the same thing, or who are willing to help solve this mystery.

> > **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _@CryptidKeeper, check the W’s.  
>  _ **_posted by TheHunter less than a minute ago_ **

This gives Jess pause. TheHunter is not someone who has been involved in this thread before now, and yet here they are, offering cryptic advice.

For a few moments, the pings stop and the world seems like it is holding its breath.

_Ping!_

> > **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _Oh my god. Oh my fucking god._
>> 
>>  _“_ **Wendigo**
>> 
>> The Wendigo hails from Algonquian folklore. It is often described as looking like a skeleton with pale, ashy skin pulled tight over the bones, a tattered, bloodstained mouth, and a strong odor of rot and decay, though some variation of this description exist. The Wendigo is commonly believed to be the result of a person consuming human flesh, beginning the transformation from man to monster. Other sources point to a malevolent spirit inhabiting a human body and forcing the person to turn to cannibalism, sparking the transformation. Whatever the cause, Wendigos have a strong associate with famine, causing them to appear mostly in winter, when food is scarce. They are thought to possess a nearly insatiable hunger for flesh. Modern descriptions of possible encounters describe them as inhumanly fast and strong, and evidence suggests that the monsters may have poor eyesight, causing them to rely on movement to track their prey.”  
>  **_posted by CryptidKeeper less than a minute ago_ **

Jess stares at the words, pouring over them, letting them wash over her like a tidal wave. It sounds… _impossible_. And yet… she saw the creature. She heard its screams and witnessed its speed. How could this description possibly exist — a description that matches hers perfectly — if it were not real?

_Ping!_

> > **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _ ** _That’s what I thought.  
>  _ **_posted by TheHunter less than a minute ago_ **

_Ping, ping, ping!_

> > ******_Re: Strange Experience_**  
>  _How the fuck did you know that??  
>  _ ******_posted by CryptidKeeper less than a minute ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience_**  
>  _That’s it. That’s got to be it! What else could it be, that sounds EXACTLY like what I saw all those years ago!  
>  _ **_posted by TruthSeeker007 less than a minute ago_**
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> **_Re: Strange Experience  
>  _** _I’m getting a fucking shotgun and never leaving my house again. Cannibalism?? Abso-fucking-lutely not!  
>  _ **_posted by MistressMacabre less than a minute ago_ **

Jess can’t process any of this. She thought she wanted answers, but now that she might have them, she finds that perhaps what she _really_ wanted was for proof that she had just imagined the monsters. That it really was just a figment of her imagination caused by her brain desperately trying to make sense of the trauma she had endured. She can feel herself beginning to shut down. She can feel her mind beginning to go numb. She glances over at the orange prescription bottle sitting on her shelf, which contains the antidepressants she’s been prescribed. She hates taking them. They make her feel weak and broken. But right now, she can’t feel any more weak and broken, so maybe…

And then she hears a small _ding-ding!_ from her computer, different from the notification pings she’s been bombarded with for the past 15 minutes. She scans the screen, and finds at the bottom a small chat window has appeared. She opens it.

> **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _I take it that everything is sinking in?_

She takes a deep breath, but before she can even think of a response, another message appears.

> **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _I’m sure you’re wondering who I am and how I could possibly know about the Wendigos, so I’ll ease your mind a little. I went through what you did. I’m not like TruthSeeker and Jaws. They just witnessed the Wendigo. I lost my entire family to it._

She types back a response.

> > **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _How did you find out what it was?_

The reply comes almost instantly. 

> **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _Because I grew up hearing the stories of the Wendigo. I’m First Nations, from the Ojibwe people. The Wendigo stories are our stories. I just didn’t believe they were real until they slaughtered my entire family._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _I’m sorry about your family._

And she is. If this person is telling her the truth, then they are truly one of the few people who can understand the pain she is feeling.

> **_TheHunter  
> _**   
>  _It’s alright. It happened a long time ago, when I was a young boy. And I’ve more than made up for their deaths with the number of lives I’ve saved._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _What do you mean?_
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _I don’t just call myself “the hunter” to sound cool, Jessica. I’ve dedicated my life to hunting down the supernatural so that no one has to ever feel the way I felt. Or the way you feel._

Jess’s stomach falls to the pit of her stomach.

> > **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _How do you know my name?_
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _Because I follow every suspected Wendigo case very closely, Jessica. I’ve known about your story since it happened. A colleague of mine lived on Blackwood Mountain, keeping a population of Wendigo under control. Unfortunately, it seems that they became too much for him. He died the same night your friends did._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _**  
>  _What is your name? Seems only fair that I know yours since you know mine._
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _** _My name is Mikom._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _What do you mean, a “population” of Wendigo, Mikom? How many are there?_
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _Were. They’re gone now. They were destroyed in the fire, their bodies burned to ash. But that won’t stop the spirit of the Wendigo. It will continue to turn those desperate enough to turn to human flesh. The Wendigo who were on that mountain were turned after a mining accident in the 50’s. Though there was a newer one, turned last year._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _Do you mean Beth or Hannah??_
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _Very likely._
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _I’m sorry if that’s upsetting to hear. I know that all of this is a lot to process._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _Everything I’ve experienced since last year has been upsetting. Why should finding out that one of my friends turned to cannibalism make things so much worse?_
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or if you really feel that way._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _I’ll let you know when I know._
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _Is there anything that you want to know? I’m sure that you’ve formed a million questions in your head since everything happened. I can try to answer some of them if you’d like._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _You said you hunt down the supernatural._
> 
>  **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _Yes, I do._
>
>> **_TheSoleSurvivor  
>  _ ** _Teach me._

There is a pause, a long minute in which Jess is afraid that Mikom will not respond, leaving her alone with her questions and this new, terrible knowledge.

And then —

> **_TheHunter  
>  _ ** _Alright._

**OoOoO**

Jess takes a deep breath of the cold spring night. It burns her lungs. Not like on the mountain, but enough to feel.

It’s good to feel something physical.

She took a cab into the city, just like she had agreed to, and now she’s staring at the address she has scrawled on a piece of paper, looking up and down the street for the place she’s to meet Mikom.

_There’s a bar I know. Very lax with carding. I did the owner a favor a few years ago. It’s a good place to meet._

If her parents find out she’s sneaking out of the house to meet mystery monster hunters from the internet in sketchy clubs that allow minors with fake ID’s of questionable quality to enter, she’s dead.

But she’s not turning back now. Not when she’s so close to what she wants.

Halfway down the block, next to a narrow alley, is a small, dark bar with a red neon sign which reads _Nova_ in swirling letters. Despite its seemingly prime location, most people are passing it up, though there are admittedly very few people out on a Tuesday night. The windows are so darkly tinted that Jess can barely see the lights inside. A bored looking bouncer stands guard outside.

She steels herself and pulls her crappy fake ID out of her jacket pocket and approaches him. He takes the ID without saying a word and studies it for a second. His eyes flick up to Jess’s face, his eyebrows so high they’re almost at his hairline. Jess tries to keep her composure and act like everything is on the up and up.

After a few seconds of glancing back and force between Jess and her fake ID, he rolls his eyes and sighs. “I’m guessing you’re Mikom’s girl. He’s sitting at the end of the bar.” He hands her back her fake ID.

Jess nods. “Thanks,” she says, putting the car back in her pocket.

He steps aside and opens the door for her to enter the bar. “Oh, and kid? Get a better fake.”

Jess laughs nervously. “I’ll do that.”

She walks inside and lets her eyes adjust to the dim lighting. The bar is fairly empty, with a few people sitting at tables here and there. Most of the people seem to be alone.

What a sad life. Drinking alone on a Tuesday night.

Behind the bar is a tired looking bartender, and sitting on the very end seat, farthest from the door, is a young man, probably in his mid 20’s, with shiny dark hair a little to shaggy for current fashion.

She takes a breath and approaches him.

“Mikom?” she asks, hovering in front of the seat next to him.

The man smiles at her. “You must be Jessica,” he says with a warm voice. “Please, have a seat. Do you have a drink of choice?”

“Uh, whisky on the rocks,” she replies, jumping up on the bar stool.

“Hey, Lucas, whisky on the rocks for my friend here,” Mikom calls out to the bartender who nods and begins filling a glass with ice and grabs a bottle of whisky off the shelf to pour over the ice. He sets the glass down in front of Jess.

“If this guy starts giving you any problems, sweetie, let me know and I’ll throw him out,” the bartender says with a smile and a little wink.

Mikom rolls his eyes. “It seems my noble deeds are forgotten already, Lucas.”

The bartender — Lucas — laughs. “I jest, I jest,” he responds. “Mikom here helped me out of a real rough spot last year. He’s a good guy, and good at his job. If you need a special type of exterminator, he's the best you could hope to find.”

“She’s not in need of my services, unfortunately,” Mikom says, very serious this time. “She’s interested in potentially learning the trade herself.”

Lucas’s eyes go wide. “Oh, honey,” he starts, sounding concerned. “I don’t know what Mikom has said to you, but I’ve watched this boy walk through my doors half dead. What he does… it’s not for most people.”

“I’m not most people,” she pipes up. “Not anymore. I know the risks. I lost all of my friends to a…” she trails off, looking around the bar for anyone who might be close enough to overhear them, but the other patrons are far out of earshot. Still, she leans in closer and says much more quietly, “monster.”

“A Wendigo, to be specific,” Mikom adds, not bothering to lower his voice.

Again, Lucas’s eyes widen, this time more in fear than concern. “I remember my grandmother telling me stories of the Wendigo from the old tradition. I never thought… I mean, I had _hoped_ they weren’t real. I suppose that was foolish with what I know.”

“They’re real,” Mikom says. “They killed Jessica’s friends. They killed my family. The two of us are kindred spirits, bound by the tragedy of the Wendigo. If she chooses to go down this path, she understands the risk involved.”

Lucas nods a little numbly and drifts down towards the other end of the bar, leaving Jess relatively alone with Mikom.

This is awkward as hell.

She takes a big gulp of her whisky, ignoring the burn completely. Whisky has been a close friend of hers these past few months.

“So,” she says, wiping her lips with her sleeve, “what’s the drill here? Is there an interview process, or…?”

She’s nervous. She’s rambling. She doesn’t know why she’s here. Her heart is racing a million beats a minute.

Mikom places his hand on hers, a strangely calming force. She looks into his dark brown, nearly black, eyes and sees compassion and understanding. For months, all she’s wanted was for someone to understand her pain. Now, someone does.

“We don’t need to talk about that right now,” he tells her calmly. “There’s time for that later. For now, just tell me about yourself.”

Jess is confused and taken aback, but soon she is rambling about herself and her likes and dislikes and her experiences in school and her childhood and everything else she can think of while Mikom listens intently, occasionally laughing at her stories or asking questions. She feels at ease with him, in a way that she hasn’t felt at ease with someone since before that damned night on the mountain.

“It sounds like you had a really great life,” Mikom says when she’s exhausted all of her tales.

“Yeah,” she tells him, a smile on her face, until she remembers why she’s here and begins to deflate, tears beginning to well in her eyes. “Yeah… it was…”

Mikom is quick to comfort her. “Don’t let what happened to you sour the memories you have of your life. Don’t let it taint the good. It’s vital that you hold on to the good or this life will destroy you.” He hands her a napkin off the bar.

Jess dabs at her eyes. “It’s hard,” she says quietly. “It’s hard to think about them without thinking about what happened.”

“I know it is,” Mikom empathizes. “But it’s crucial to remember them if I’m going to take you on as an apprentice. If you lose what’s grounding you — your memories of your friends — then you’ll become reckless and a liability. I won’t train someone who’s going to get me killed.”

“So you’re going to do it?” she asks. “You’re going to train me to do what you do? Hunt monsters?”

Mikom stares deep into her eyes for a long moment, as if searching her very soul for something. Jess is afraid that he’s not going to find what he’s looking for. She’s afraid that he’ll leave her with this new knowledge of the supernatural, unable to do anything to protect herself.

At long last, he speaks.

“Yes,” he says, strangely solemn. “I’ll train you.”

**OoOoO**

In the days following her first meeting with Mikom, Jess finds it hard to continue on the way she had been. She’s trying hard not to tip off her parents to the change, as she knows that when the time comes, she must leave without a word. If they suspect that something is different, they will keep a much closer eye on her, which might foil her plans to run away with Mikom and begin a life of hunting monsters. She pretends that she isn’t as giddy as she feels, making the conscious effort not to smile, to keep her expressions neutral and withdrawn, like she’s been for the past few months since the Wendigo murdered her friends.

When Saturday rolls around, the day she is to meet with Mikom again to gather supplies before she makes her escape, she has rehearsed her script a million times.

“Hey, mom, dad?” she says nervously. “Do you mind if I go hang out at the mall with Angi today? I just…” she take a deep breath, pretending to calm fake nerves. “I really need to see some friends. I haven’t really… not since…”

“Of course, darling!” her mother immediately responds, her face lighting up.

“It’s great that you’re going to see Angi!” her dad adds quickly.

She gives them a small smile, but she wants to be beaming. “Thanks. I just… I just want things to start to get back to normal.”

Her plan has worked.

“Do you want me to drive you?” her mom asks.

“No,” she says. “I think I’d rather drive myself. I miss driving.”

“Of course,” her dad replies. “Whatever you want, pumpkin.”

Her cover story is set and believed 100%. They’re not suspicious of anything, and they’ve never been the kind to check in with her friends, because she’s never been the kind to lie to them about anything.

Their trust in her will be the ultimate betrayal.

But what else can she really do?

She meets Mikom on the other side of town, at the address of a small, run down hunting supplies store. He is leaning against the side of a nondescript black pickup truck that’s probably close to 30 years old. The back is covered in a heavy gray tarp.

Jess pulls her car into the spot next to him and gets out, pulling her jacket close. The winter feels never ending, and she feels like she’s become more sensitive to the cold ever since that night.

“Are you ready, Jessica?” Mikom asks holding out a hand for her.

She nods and takes his hand.

“I already have all the permits in place. I have a guy who’s good with forgeries, but I doubt we’d be given any problems here even if I didn’t,” he says, leading her towards the hunting store. “The owner here is a big supporter of our type of hunter.”

 _Our type_. He is already including Jess in his language.

She likes that.

The inside of the store is small and cramped, with al assortment of hunting supplies lining the walls and packed onto close set shelves. In the back, there is a large counter with a glass display case, with a wall of guns behind it. A large, bearded man stands behind the counter.

“Eric, how are you?” Mikom asks, walking straight towards the counter with Jess still in tow.

Eric smiles, his dark beard turning up at the sides. “Never better, Mikom,” he replies in a friendly deep voice. “Who’s your little lady friend?”

“This is my new apprentice,” Mikom says, pulling some papers out of his jacket pocket. “We’re here to get her a little starter kit of supplies.”

“How old are you, honey?” Eric asks, concerned, just like Lucas earlier in the week. “You look far too young to be getting in on such a dangerous business.”

Jess opens her mouth to speak, but Mikom cuts her off. “She lost all of her friends to a Wendigo. I reckon that experience alone make her old enough to understand what she’s getting into. I wouldn’t have taken her on if I didn’t think she was ready.”

“A wendigo, huh?” Eric says, looking Jess over, before turning back to Mikom. “Any relation to Jack’s death?”

“The very same.”

“Shame,” Eric says, hanging his head. “Jack was a good drinking buddy. Well, it’s a miracle that you made it out, young lady. I do suppose that an experience like that would turn one to the hunting life. I’m guessing you’ve got your ‘papers’ in order, then, Mikom?”

Mikom smiles at the obvious use of verbal air quotes and hands over the papers. Eric looks them over and rolls his eyes a little, much like the bouncer at Nova had done for Jess with her fake ID. Hopefully Mikom’s were a little more convincing than her shoddy ID.

“Alright then, what would you like to start out with?” Eric asks, gesturing to the wall of guns.

“What do you think, Jessica? Have any preferences?” Mikom asks her.

She does not. She’s never even shot a gun before, not a real one at least. She shakes her head. “You’re the expert,” she says with a shrug.

“Okay, let’s get a shotgun and case, a few boxes of ammo, three motion activated cameras, twenty-five feet of the strongest chains you’ve got, and a motion lure to start out with. I can teach her how to make her own later,” Mikom rattles off while Eric begins pulling out the supplies he’s listing and setting them on the counter.

Jess stares at the shotgun that he’s pulled off of the wall. It’s beautiful in a way, dark polished wood and metal. She’s a little mesmerized by it. She’s never shot a gun before, but she feels almost giddy to give it a try.

“Do you like this one?” Mikom asks, seeing her eyeing the shotgun. “Because there are others if you’d prefer something else.”

“No,” Jess says. “I like this one. It’s just all feeling real now… in a good way.”

He beams at her. “That’s good to hear.” He turns to Eric and pulls a wallet out of his pocket, sliding a credit card out of one of the pockets. “I think that this is good for now, Eric. I can supply Jessica with everything else she might need.” He hands him the card and Eric types all the items into his ancient looking cash register before swiping the card. A receipt prints out noisily from the machine, which he rips off and hands to Mikom.

“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Mikom,” Eric says, grabbing a large plastic bag and putting all of the newly purchased supplies inside. He puts the shotgun inside the case and snaps it closed. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon enough.”

“You know it,” Mikom says, grabbing the bag off the counter and motioning to Jess to grab the gun case. It’s heavier than she expects, but it gives her a thrill. She follows Mikom back out of the store and into the cold mid afternoon air.

“Well, now that you’ve got your starter kit, it’s just time to make the break from your parents,” Mikom notes, opening the cab of his truck to put the supplies behind the driver’s seat. Jess nestles the gun case in the floorboard next to the bag.

“I know,” she says. This is the part she’s been most apprehensive about. “I know that this will break their heart, but… I just can’t keep living a normal life, knowing there are monsters in the world hurting people.”

Mikom nods. “That’s how I felt, after.”

“I’ll make a clean break from them tonight,” she tells him. “I’ll pack a few belongings and just disappear. It’ll be better in the long run.”

“I’ll be there to pick you up,” he promises. “And then your training will begin.”

“I can’t wait,” she says, excited again. “I just… I want to help keep people safe. I want to keep _myself_ safe. I’m never going back to being that helpless girl I was in the mines.”

“You survived a Wendigo all on your own,” he points out. “You’re far from helpless in my eyes.”

Jess rolls her eyes. “I just froze in fear and that happened to be the right move.”

Mikom laughs. “Even so, you’re an incredibly strong person, and I know you’re going to make an amazing hunter.”

“I hope so,” she says, a little nervous now.

“I know you will.”

Jess gives a little sigh. “Well, I’m glad you have confidence in me.

He smiles. “So, Jessica Riley, who are you going to become now?” he asks her, like it’s an obvious question to ask.

“What do you mean?” she responds, confused.

“I wasn’t born Mikom, but Mikom is who I became when I started this journey,” he explains. “I shed my old name to be who I am today,” He looks her dead in the eye, a strange intensity brewing in him. “So who are you going to become?”

She thinks for a long moment about everything that’s happened to her. Everything that’s happened to the people she loved. She thinks of Mike. She thinks of Emily. And then she knows who she wants to be.

“I’m Emily,” she says confidently, wrapping the name around her like a shroud. “Emily Munroe.”

Her friends are gone. But their legacy — their names — will live on in her.

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! This ended up being way longer and more complicated than I originally expected! Some housekeeping to take care of:
> 
> -This was an absolute bitch and a half to format! I had to jump between rich text and html in order to get everything looking right because it kept adding spaces between things between edits and it was hard to fix it. So if anything looks funny or wrong, I’m sorry! I perhaps got a little ambitious with the multimedia aspect, especially since I don't know anything about code. I'm still not 100% happy with the results, but I needed to call it quits with less than 12 hours before fics went live. (Fun fact! This fic is 19 pages without code, 24 pages with!)
> 
> -The first two drawings in the fic were done by me. The third was done by my beautiful and talented girlfriend, Hyenateeth, who, coincidentally, was the person that the recipent of this fic, Selkit, wrote for last year! Small, small world, right!
> 
> -The title comes from the song [_Rain in Soho_ by The Mountain Goats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anS6bcPpvoQ). Shout out to my girlfriend for suggesting the song. It really inspired a lot of this fic.
> 
> -I ended up watching a playthrough of Until Dawn shortly after finishing the fic and posting and noticed a few inaccuracies (namely, Chris and the Stranger’s bodies being found where they were killed and not draggee into the mines and strung up by Hannah), but I’m not going to be rewriting those parts of the fic.
> 
> -It was really important to me to include a Native/First Nations character considering the subject material. I’m really over the idea of taking lore and mythos from a culture (especially one that’s traditionally been targeted for cultural genocide) and not having any characters from that cultural group in the story. Since the Wendigo is from Algonquian legends, I chose an Ojibwe character to be Jessica’s guide to find out what happened.


End file.
